The recent death of a Canyon Hills
Middle School student should be a wake-up call about the problems of
violence, bullying and gangs facing middle-school students, said
advocates and parents.
The death of eighth-grader Jose Lozano
should spur schools to do more to protect children, said the parents
of some students who have been assaulted.
"School -- it's
a social minefield for many kids," said John Linney of Impact
Coaching and Speaking, which runs violence-prevention workshops at
schools.
The middle-school years can be an especially
challenging time as children hit puberty, seek an identity and long
for independence, experts said. It is also the peak age for bullying.
And gangs are increasingly recruiting middle-school
students.
Lozano, 15, died Nov. 10 as the result of an
after-school fistfight with a 14-year-old boy at a school bus stop,
police said. The alleged assailant, whose name was not released, has
been charged with murder.
Police called the case
"gang-related" because the boys hung out with gangs in
their neighborhood.
The boys' friends said the boys had a
personal dispute and were not gang members, but other recent
gang-related beatings have occurred involving students of the
Northeast school.
Andrea Minor said she was frightened by
Lozano's death because her 13-year-old son has been bullied, punched
and called names at Parkland Middle School.
"It made me
cry. I don't want it to be my kid ... ," Minor said. "I
feel people don't care cause it's not their kid. I know my son is not
the problem. He's a straight-A student. He's in gifted and talented
(classes), but he's afraid to go to school."
Mark Parsons
said his 16-year-old stepdaughter was injured in a recent fight with
another girl at Franklin High School. Like Minor, he felt that
concerns about violence were not taken seriously by schools. "They
try to minimize it," he said.
Both Minor and Parsons are
waiting to hear from officials in their school districts. The
children's names were not published for fear of reprisals.
District
officials have said schools have taken proactive violence prevention
measures, including bullying-prevention workshops, and a police
officer is stationed at most high schools and middle schools in El
Paso.
But Linney said 70 percent of mistreatment in a school
goes unnoticed by adults, who often dismiss the problem as a part of
growing up.
"It starts with small stuff, with exclusion
and bullying, and it grows into the fights and student bringing
weapons to school. Students bring weapons to school to protect
themselves," Linney said.
Some teens will also join gangs
for protection, though that leads to more problems, police
said.
Gang prevention counselor Rob Gallardo of the OnRamp
Youth Foundation of El Paso said gangs are spreading into middle
schools in an attempt replace older members who are imprisoned or
have retired. Parental involvement and supervision are vital to
prevent gang involvement, he said.
"Schools are there to
teach. Parents are there to form lives," Gallardo said. "We
can't just be dumping all this on schools."
The National
Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center, which is sponsored by the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reported that almost 30
percent of teens in the United States are estimated to be involved in
bullying either as an aggressor or as a victim.
Boys are more
likely to take part in or be victims of physical aggression, while
girls are more likely to be involved in passive aggression such as
spreading gossip or encouraging rejection, the center said.
And
though there are concerns about youth violence, teens are less likely
to be victims than in the early 1990s. The U.S. Department of Justice
reported earlier this year that the national violent crime
victimization rate for teens ages 12-17 decreased 59 percent from
1993 to 2003.
Note: OnRamp Youth Foundation is now Operation No Gangs Original online story on El Paso Times website no longer available
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